Cloud Face (Cara de nube)

Four childhood friends reunite to create a stage play about Cloud Face, the boy whose death forever marked their lives. But when the creative process reopens old wounds and brings long-buried secrets to the surface, they must confront not only the past, but also the truth about themselves.

Markel, known as Ballesta, is going through one of the darkest periods of his life when he is awarded a prestigious artistic grant that allows him to return to his homeland and reunite three childhood friends: Morro, Teceta, and Uvedoble. The project involves living together for several months in an artist residency to create a stage production inspired by an event that forever shaped their lives: the death of Cloud Face, a boy from their childhood gang whose memory continues to haunt them decades later.

The reunion is far from idyllic. Although they still share the nicknames, jokes, and camaraderie of their youth, beneath the surface simmer old resentments, guilt, and unresolved wounds. Each man carries his own ghosts, while Ballesta harbors the greatest secret of all: he exaggerated his professional achievements to secure the grant and lives in constant fear that the truth will emerge. Unable to cope with the pressure and obsessed with keeping the group together, he begins manipulating his friends in increasingly dangerous ways. At the same time, he maintains a secret relationship with Andoni, a farmer whose presence will ultimately play a decisive role in his life.

As they attempt to develop the play, life at the residency becomes increasingly chaotic. Personal frustrations, years of accumulated grievances, and Ballesta’s growing recklessness turn the residency into a place charged with tension, where the line between artistic creation and emotional collapse begins to blur. What started as an attempt to remember Cloud Face gradually forces them to confront themselves and the image they have constructed over the years of both the boy they lost and the young men they once were.

As rehearsals progress, the past resurfaces with unexpected force. The four friends realize they never truly understood who Cloud Face was or what his death meant to each of them. Their artistic investigation evolves into an intimate exploration of identity, guilt, desire, male friendship, and everything they learned to conceal behind humor, toughness, or silence.

When Ballesta’s lies finally come to light, the group falls apart. His downfall culminates in an act of violence that leads to his expulsion from the project and forces him, for the first time, to confront the consequences of his actions. While he spirals into a profound personal crisis, the others continue working on the play and discover a new, more honest way of telling the story that brought them together.

In the final stage, Ballesta returns as a spectator to a project that no longer belongs to him. On stage, childhood memories, the figure of Cloud Face, and the secrets they have all carried for years take on new meaning. What emerges is not only the portrait of a loss, but also that of a generation of men unable to express their emotions and finally compelled to confront the truths they have avoided their entire lives.

Blending humor, melancholy, and emotional depth, Cloud Face becomes a story about friendship, identity, and the transformative power of art, where the search for truth ultimately becomes inseparable from the search for oneself.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Julen Azcona is a journalist and writer from Navarre, winner of the Runner-up Prize in the Basque-Language Literary Competition for Emerging Authors. His debut novel, Mud, received the Apollo Award for Best LGBTQ+ Book in Spain and has been featured in numerous articles highlighting essential LGBTQ+ literature in publications such as GQ and Fantastic Mag. In 2023, he was awarded a grant from the Antonio Gala Foundation for Young Creators, and in 2024 he received recognition at the 40th Navarra Young Art Encounters. La Voz de Galicia included him in its list of fifteen writers under thirty to watch.

His latest novel, Cloud Face, combines drama with elements of psychological thriller, relying on an introspective narrative style and an increasingly oppressive atmosphere. The story is built around complex characters burdened by emotional wounds, everyday conflicts, silences, and shared memories. The result is a work of considerable emotional intensity that explores friendship, grief, and the lasting impact of childhood trauma.

The novel possesses strong audiovisual potential. Its ensemble structure, the interplay between past and present, and the constant presence of a psychological threat make it particularly well suited for adaptation as either a limited series or a feature film with an intimate and subtly dark tone.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Limited Series, Feature Film, TV Movie.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.